The following prior art reflects the state of the art of which applicant is aware and is included herewith to discharge applicant's acknowledged duty to disclose relevant prior art. It is stipulated, however, that none of these references teach singly nor render obvious when considered in any conceivable combination the nexus of the instant invention as disclosed in greater detail hereinafter and as particularly claimed.
______________________________________ PATENT NO. ISSUE DATE INVENTOR ______________________________________ 3,860,135 January 14, 1975 Yung, et al. 3,924,768 December 9, 1975 Lemons 4,146,146 March 27, 1979 Mar ______________________________________
This invention involves continuing effort on the applicant's part to develop safety containers. Applicant's prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,146 which was an improvement over U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,135 issued to Michael A. Yung and Bob Mar, the applicant herein, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,768 issued to John B. Lemons and assigned to the applicant herein.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,146 discloses a safety container with a stopper hinged to the lip of the container so as to be movable from a sealed position to an open position. The underside of the stopper is provided with a slide channel which extends only partially across the stopper. A slide pin is mounted in the slide channel for limited reciprocating motion and has an enlarged dovetail shaped end which is insertable in a dovetail recess in the lip of the container to latch the stopper in a closed position.
The enlarged dovetail portion of the pin has an inconspicuous groove which is manipulated by the fingernail of an adult user to effect opening of the container. The inconspicuous fingernail groove is important to the security aspects of the design.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,768 discloses a safety container wherein a stopper is hinged to a container having a mouth with a lip surrounding the mouth. The lip is provided with a slideable pin which acts as a dead bolt when reciprocated across the mouth between a closed recess at one end and an opening at the other end. The stopper has a diametrically extending channel open at both ends which registers with the openings in the lip and receives the dead bolt to be locked in the mouth when the dead bolt is inserted.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,135 discloses an arrangement similar to that disclosed in 3,924,768 with the exception that the dead bolt is reciprocated in the stopper rather than in the lip.
The apparatus described in this application differs significantly from the prior art described above in primarily enhancing child safety aspects of medicine containers.